Budget friendly Android tablets are a dime a dozen these days, but they all arenât created equally and there are some very bad tablets out there. When you get into the sub $150 tablet market you need to be very careful with what tablet you go with as companies start cutting costs by reducing the hardware specifications and that can lead to subpar performance and an overall bad user experience. If you've ever purchased an inexpensive tablet thinking that they were all the same, you usually find out in under three minutes that you screwed up and will be running to return it. ASUS, the company behind the hardware of the Google Nexus 7, is still charging ahead in the tablet market and recently released the Memo Pad 7 for $149 (around £129 or AU$170). The ASUS Memo Pad 7 ME176C is similar to the original Nexus 7, but the housing is a tad bit larger and the hardware inside is very different. The ASUS Memo Pad 7 is powered by an Intel Bay Trail Atom processor...

If there is one type of component which has a saturated market it is motherboards. Thinking back a generation or two of Intel chipsets we can remember one manufacturer having over twenty different models just on that one socket…TWENTY. Of course that means a wide selection of price and feature options for consumers. A similar thing is happening on the Z97 platform and mixed in with some craziness from various manufacturers are others which are much more focused in their board releases. On our test bench today is the Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE which looks to deliver many of the features of the competition such as enhanced audio and M.2. support but at a more aggressive price point.

There has been quite a transformation in the desktop CPU cooling market. Several years ago, innovation in the consumer cooling industry was beginning to stagnate – air-based heatsinks were reaching impractically massive size levels while custom liquid cooling solutions saw little exposure outside of overclocking enthusiasts and boutique system builders due to their high cost and maintenance. Then a company named Asetek jumped the gun with the Low Cost Liquid Cooling (LCLC) concept. These were all-in-one (AIO) closed liquid cooling solutions squarely aimed at the mainstream consumer market, sold preassembled with an integrated pump, reservoir, coolant, radiator, and CPU block for an entirely maintenance-free experience. Coolit soon followed this untapped market and despite patent lawsuits surrounding the idea, the AIO concept became a game changer that brought the efficiency of water to the all-important sub-$100 CPU cooling price range.

Over the years, AIO solutions have evolved to encompass larger and thicker radiators, as well as integrated software for pump and fan speed monitoring. Despite that, this industry has not changed much over the years, largely due to the fact that it is still dominated by the two originators: Asetek and CoolIT. While companies such as Antec, Corsair, and Thermaltake have introduced their own AIO liquid cooler variations, base designs and manufacturing commonly sources back to one of the two big players. It is not necessarily a bad practice – these OEM-based units have known to consistently perform well for relatively decent prices.

Today we are going to compare the two Mid-range nVidia cards: the GTX 750 Ti with Maxwell GPU and the nVidia GTX 660 Kepler GPU. The GTX 750 Ti is basically the first glimpse at NVIDIAs upcoming Maxwell GPUs and it will be quite interesting to see wether a lower end card from a new generation can keep up with a higher end card from the earlier generation.

A few days ago, we released our review of the Intel SSD DC P3700 NVMe SSD. This new entry to the enterprise market brought in just under 500K IOPS in a single PCB and single controller design package, a design not needing the traditional RAID solution to achieve performance above 2.5GB/s. As much attention as it gained from the enterprise community, we were literally swamped with e-mails requesting common enthusiast benchmarks, along with the question of the day, “Will it boot?” As much as the DC P3700 is built as an enterprise storage solution, interest definitely carries much further as we anticipate release of the entire P3000 NVMe SSD family in the near future.

In the hardware world we often concern ourselves with finding the right hardware to fit out builds. Searching for said hardware can often take us down some scary roads full of confusion and budget overruns. Of course our hardware quests don’t always stop with the PC and while Hardware Asylum may not review much in the mobile space that doesn’t mean we ignore our enthusiast roots.

As some of you know I take an annual trip to Taipei Taiwan for Computex which is one of the largest computer trade shows in the world. One problem that has plagued me over the years is connectivity. You see in the US I have an unlimited mobile data package but that goes away when I leave the country. I’m also one of the lucky ones to have a locked phone so there is no way for me to get a "local" TW number or data plan. Likewise, I have also been plagued with trying to I keep my social media updated while roaming the show floor. Sure they offer Wifi but, short of carrying one of my Asus tablets around there isn’t an easy way to photos from my DSLR to the internet.

In this review I wanted to introduce you to a new product from Kingston called the MobileLite Wireless G2. This is a second generation product builing on the existing version and brings with it even more features.

The LG G Watch is the South Korean firm's first attempt at an Android Wear device, as Google looks to tackle the wearable space head on before it sprouts too many disjointed frameworks and ecosystems.It's one of three launch devices, although only itself and the Samsung Gear Live are currently available with the more sought after Motorola Moto 360 arriving later this year.As these are early devices in a new ecosystem I'm not expecting perfection right off the bat, Android Wear is a new offering to the market and manufacturers will have to feel their way into the software.It's early doors for app developers too, with only a handful preparing their applications for launch, but these numbers will grow - hopefully rapidly - over the next few months.Back to the LG G Watch and you can pick one up now for £159, $229 (around AU$290). Oddly it's £10 cheaper than the Gear Live in the UK, but in the US the G Watch is $30 more expensive. Bizarre.A kicker for Android Wear devices is the fact they'll work with any Android device (running Android 4.3 or higher), meaning you don't have to own a LG smartphone to take advantage of the G Watch.

Despite being launched years ago, Linksys’ WRT54G is still considered one of the best wireless routers available on the market. While most of this appeal is due to very capable third party firmware, the WRT54G set a high water mark that was only recently surpassed by some of the latest AC-band products. In order to keep up with the competition Linksys is now launching a spiritual successor to their storied router. Called the WRT1900AC, it brings high performance, a user friendly design and a broad feature set to a market that’s already filled with alternatives.

Just a little over a year ago Belkin purchased the languishing Linksys networking division from Cisco and promised to not only revitalize a once great brand but to take an hands-off approach to managing their latest acquisition. Just as before the purchase, there would be Belkin branded consumer networking appliances, and there would be Linksys designed and branded products. This segmentation would allow both teams to work on their own initiatives while also building off each others’ strengths. The first byproduct of this partnership is the WRT1900AC.

The ultra-comfortable mouse on test. Mionix is a relative newcomer when it comes to PC peripherals but is making a name for itself by releasing some of the most comfortable mice around. A case in point is the Naos 7000, which offer great design and comfort in equal measure. But there's a better Naos rodent out there; the 8200, priced at £60, that promises higher DPI coverage via an upgraded laser sensor.

Seem familiar? It should, because Mionix keeps the same sculpted profile seen on the Naos 5000 and Naos 7000 models. Built for right-handed folk, the wide central section flares out on that side, ostensibly for resting the fourth finger. Lefties, such as yours truly, rest their thumb on the same section and cannot access the buttons on the left-hand side easily. Interested in this mouse? You had better be a righty; lefties should look towards the Avior 8200 instead.

But if you are a righty things look up. The Naos 8200 is very, very comfortable to hold, made possible by a lovely soft-touch covering and well-thought-out palm-grip design. It's more suited to bigger hands, mind, as it can be a tad difficult to pick up if you have smaller mitts. Seven programmable buttons - left, right, two on the side, two on the top, scroll - are all easy to get to and have a smooth action. Running off the front is a 2m braided cable.

e are starting a new series of articles here on ThinkComputers. We define our “Mobile Arsenal” as what we would recommend to you for your mobile setup. Many of us are traveling all the time and we need to be able to be productive on the road. After using quite a lot of different types of mobile products and applications we are going to focus on the best and present them to you here. Today we are going to focus on the mouse. Unless you are extremely comfortable using a trackpad it is very hard to be productive on the road without using a mouse. We consider mice in our “Mobile Arsenal” category as mobile mice, so you are not going to find any full-size mice here. So if you are looking for the perfect mouse for your travels read on and see what we would recommend.

I have always been a fan of the finer things even as a child I found myself asking for the Armani over Oscar Della Renta. There was only one problem, my Draft Beer pockets couldn’t afford my Champagne dreams. Age, Education and doing without one to afford the other has opened opportunities but there are still things I desire that I unfortunately cannot afford. My tastes are no different when it comes to my personal computer, I have always desired to have the very best but keeping up with the ever changing technology was something I was never able to afford. Now that I have let the cat out of the bag, hopefully you understand why I became a computer hardware enthusiast.

Hardware enthusiasts were born out of poverty, (I say that lightly) the inability to monetarily keep up with changing technology. Our main purpose in life was to take a less superior product and tune it to outperform even the most superior. It was the unaffordability of the higher end that bread the enthusiast but times have changed. There is less of a gap between the high end and the mainstream than ever before. What was once only obtainable to some is now within reach to many. MSI is one of the first manufacturers to bring enthusiast level hardware to the mainstream. This process began three years ago with the introduction of their Gaming line. MSI Gaming products include many features and options you may expect to find on higher end products while not skimping on the quality of build. The Z97 Gaming 9 Motherboard is the Flagship of the Gaming series.

Today we are going to look at an exciting new cooler from Noctua – the NH-D15. Unfortunately to some technical issues, our review of this has been delayed for some time now. The Noctua NH-D15 slots in at the top of their range of coolers – above the critically acclaimed NH-D14 which we dubbed the ‘Austrian Sandwich’.

Largely thanks to the somewhat recent technological advancements people can now experience the features and performance only found in full sized ATX/EATX/XL-ATX mainboards up until today with the much smaller mITX and mATX ones. None of us here are much into such solutions since we prefer to use full towers for a number of reasons but we also can't deny that for people who want a system that doesn't take much space such mainboards are the obvious choice. Now in the past when people chose such a mainboard they normally paired it with a relatively small HTPC case in order to save both space and money but nowadays with many people pairing such mainboards with long high-end graphics cards (even mGPU ones) getting a small HTPC case is really not the way to go. Raidmax however decided to take things a bit further with their brand new Horus MX Water Cooling Gaming Micro ATX tower which we have here with us today.

Raidmax was founded in 1988 with the mission of providing the best solutions: specifically, meeting your requirements for innovative designs, excellent performance and quality products. In early 2003, Raidmax was the first to debut the design "Scorpio": an alien eye shape on its general front panel. At the time, it was the best ever hit in the gaming case business and almost every factory had owned at least one similar design back in China. Two years later, Raidmax released another cutting-edge design, Samurai, and people who had seen the case itself instantly fell in love. After numerous global feedback, Raidmax is known all over the world. It is said our company is not only a case designer but also the perfect budget keeper. You can simply spend a little but you receive higher quality than you expect. It has been more than 10 years since Raidmax began its work on its unique product lines and market position. The name of Raidmax is synonymous to gaming design and budget cases. In the United States, Raidmax is considered to be the best second tier brand; in Asia, it is said that only Raidmax can offer the budget cases with great designs; in Europe, with almost no brand management, Raidmax' followers are still showing their loyal support in many ways.

Although the Horus MX is only compatible with Mini ITX and Micro ATX boards you may not be able to tell it apart from a normal midi tower at least not until you turn it around or open the right side panel. Size is actually the one thing that helps the Horus MX stand out from the crowd since Raidmax made use of that and fitted it with features one simply can't find in smaller cases. So the Horus MX comes ready with room for three 5.25" optical drives, three 2.5/3.5" drives, five PCI cards (up to 390mm long), normal ATX sized power supply unit and six 120mm fans (or 4x120mm and one 140mm fan or one 280mm radiator at the top). Of course design and quality always matter when you're looking to get a PC tower but in this particular case size is something that also matters quite a bit so let’s take a closer look at the Raidmax Horus MX.

SanDisk has released the Extreme Pro series SSD which we'll benchmark and review. Though performance wise they will only be a notch faster, they offer better endurance, ling lasting performance, 10 years warranty and slightly better pricing as well. Meet the “cream of the crop” from SanDisk as we review their all new Extreme PRO SSDs with nCache technology. The successor to their magnificent Extreme II series SSD are made in-house by SanDisk themselves including the PCB design and the actual NAND storage flash memory. The SSD series has been developed alongside a Marvel controller tied to SanDisk NAND flash memory.

With the Extreme Pro series Sandisk ups their most popular SSD series a notch. It is a bit faster, but more importantly, SanDisk focused a lot on long-lasting performance. Typically over time performance of an SSD degrades quite a bit. That's different with the Extreme Pro series. There are more advantages, not only endurance, but lifespan has increased as well. Sandisk guarantees 80 TB written. So with 10 years lifespan even if you write 20 Gigabyte of data per day 365 Days a year that should be peanuts. In fact they are so confident about it that they will guarantee this with a 10 year limited warranty. While stability and safety of your data have become a number priority for the manufacturers, the technology keeps advancing in a fast pace as it does, the performance numbers a good SSD offers these days are simply breathtaking. 450 to 500 MB/sec on SATA3 is the norm for a single controller based SSD. Next to that, in the past year NAND flash memory (the storage memory used inside an SSD) has become much cheaper as well. Prices now roughly settle at just under 1 USD per GB for the end-user. As such, SSD technology and NAND storage have gone mainstream. The market is huge, fierce and competitive, but it brought us where we are today offering nice volume SSDs at way more acceptable prices.

The company SilentiumPC was established in 2007 in Warsaw, Poland. Their main objective is to offer quality products at a very affordable price level; the latter is achieved by applying cost-cutting in banners, promo gear, packaging... however not in the quality of the product itself. The SilentiumPC lineup consists of cases, CPU air coolers, power supplies, fans, notebook cooling and other accessories. Today we introduce you to the SilentiumPC Aquarius X90: a mid-tower case, designed specifically for the liquid cooling enthusiasts in mind. SilentiumPC labels it as the ultimate choice for high-end gaming systems with compact dimensions and at an amazing value.

There is no question that the landscape of liquid cooling is changing and, along with that, the factors involved with making component choices are changing. Part of this change actually makes me feel I need to have a disclaimer or explanation statement here of the type often found in contracts in legal documents. Something along the lines of “open loop, referred to in this document as ‘liquid cooling’, in no way implies any correlation or relation to CLC, and the facts contained herein do not apply to CLC as a whole”. In less legalese terms; this article is not about CLCs. The basic ideas and principles discussed really won’t apply to CLCs. This article is about custom, open loop components.

Moving on to the changing landscape, there was a time that performance was really all that mattered to those using liquid cooling. Looks were not of any particular importance, even intended usage of a component wasn’t of great importance if it performed well. Cost was typically looked at with chagrin, but taken on for the sake of performance. Now we are seeing prices drop and liquid cooling moving more and more into the mainstream. With that, aesthetics, build quality and easy functionality have come to take on huge roles in the component choice process. Performance is still key, but right now, only a few degrees will separate any of the CPU blocks from top manufacturers. With that in mind, looks and usability become that much more important.

Stop killing your Android phone! Theres a lot of misinformation out there regarding the usefulness of RAM booster apps and task killer apps. At first glance they sound incredibly useful, but a closer look shows that they could actually be harming your phone instead. Long story short: Simply avoid using RAM booster and task killer apps. They may have once been useful, but Android has progressed far enough that these sorts of apps are now outdated, unnecessary, and counterproductive. If you want to know why theyre bad, keep reading.

It's safe to say by now, that getting to know Windows 8.1 relies almost entirely on the Start screen environment. While we cover some desktop aspects in the final two lessons, we operate under the assumption that despite Microsoft’s acquiescence to traditional Windows users, Windows itself will continue to evolve with touch in mind.